Texas Tech Today

Adventure Media Course Immerses Students in the Heart of Outdoor World

Students in the course will bikepack through Big Bend Ranch State Park compiling media content they will later use to produce documentary, editorial and commercial media while gaining valuable real-world experience.

Jerod Foster leads a discussion among students as they prepare to ride 26 miles of
the Caprock Canyons State Park Trailway as part of training for the Adventure Media
course's Spring Break expedition to Big Bend Ranch State Park.

Jerod Foster remembers vividly the moment during his time as an undergraduate student at Texas
Tech University that changed his life.

An aspiring photography student, Foster took the popular senior-level intersession
photography class where students travel to the Texas Tech Center at Junction and become immersed in the surroundings where they could one day work for a living.
It was the class that set Foster on the path toward becoming a world-class and highly
publicized photographer.

Now an associate professor of practice in the College of Media & Communication, he teaches the same class he took, as well as a similar study abroad course in New
Zealand, but is looking to take that experience to another level.

"That was a turning point in my life," Foster said. "It was a unique, extremely hands-on
experience at a big university, and I've had it in mind to keep creating experiences
like this."

Foster and assistant professor Justin Keene in the Department of Journalism and Electronic Media are trying to give students the same opportunity of a life-changing class with the
creation of Adventure Media, which takes a limited number of students and places them
into the very environment outdoors-oriented companies thrive in. The students will
spend their spring break bikepacking through Big Bend Ranch State Park gathering both
still and video footage which they will then turn into short documentaries, print
and online feature content and marketing collateral.

Bikepacking is essentially backpacking on a mountain bike – riding trails that include
at least one overnight stay where bikes and the riders are loaded down with all the
gear necessary.

Tyson Earl (left), an electronic media and communication senior, and Nick Hay, an
electronic media and communication sophomore, ride along the Caprock Canyons State
Park Trailway.

The goal of the course is to produce high-quality material while at the same time
giving students an inside, personal look at what it takes to work in this environment.
The experience will give them an idea of what it would take to do this kind of work
as a professional after graduation.

Foster likens it to being a great football photographer. If you want to get the best
shots, you better know the game and how it develops.

"It's going to be a mentally tough class," said Keene, who also has taught a study
abroad program in London. "Cycling as a sport is not an easy one to have as a hobby,
and to do it loaded down with gear is not easy, either. This is a mental commitment
as much as it is a monetary or physical commitment."

Thinking outside of the box

Both Foster and Keene are outdoor enthusiasts. Whether it's professionally or away
from work, both are at their best outside the classroom, so the natural progression
for both was to find a way to merge their personal and professional interests. And
there's nothing that says a class has to meet in a classroom, either.

"There's nothing out there saying you can't hold a class in fewer than 15 weeks. You
can, it's just really intense," Foster said. "I've been teaching the Junction photo
class as an assistant or as the instructor of record for 11 years now and that is
15 days of some of the most intense academic experiences you can have. It's incredible
for the students.

Adrian Smith, an agricultural communication senior, stands ready to photograph riders
in the Clarity Tunnel on the Caprock Canyons State Park Trailway.

"Last summer we were talking and Justin mentioned that he wanted to teach a long-semester
version of the class I taught previously, so I asked, " Why don't we co-teach this
thing?' I've gone bikepacking in Big Bend a couple of times and we're both cyclists,
and we both feel we have enough expertise in a couple of different areas that we can
combine them for this class to make it immersive and very hands-on."

Adventure Media (EMC 4301) was born. The class does not meet in a traditional classroom
or lecture hall. It is limited to 15 students, chosen from a thorough interview process,
who meet three times prior to the expedition to Big Bend to get used to biking over
rough terrain, using Mae Simmons Park to simulate the trails. They also review the
photographic and video requirements during the trip, which involves shooting as much
still photography and video as they can, all while concentrating on an adventure and
outdoors-oriented audience/market. Among other individual assignments, three groups
of five students each will produce short documentaries on some aspect of the trip,
whether it's the park, the people they meet or something else.

Students also are required to keep an adventure journal throughout the semester detailing
their experiences before, during and after the expedition. They also will produce
commercial and marketing material for various local businesses such as Velocity Bike
Shop and Mountain Hideaway, which have supported the class through discounts and product,
as well as national and international supporters such as Tailwind Nutrition, an endurance
athletics supplement company based in Colorado, and MindShift Gear, a camera bag company
based in California.

The eight-day trip will involve students traveling to Big Bend by van on the opening
weekend of spring break and stashing the vans at locations for later use. Foster,
Keene and the students will then bikepack through the park for the first two days,
covering about 15 miles per day. The third day will be one where students can rest
and recharge, or shoot more footage if needed, and the last two days will involve
more riding and gathering further footage.

Given the physical and mental requirements of the class, Keene and Foster made sure
students they interviewed for the class understood exactly what was going to be asked
of them during the trip. Being in strong physical shape was not a requirement, but
the demands of the class weren't sugarcoated, either.

"We had the conversation with them that if their current lifestyle is not getting
off the couch much and playing video games, you need to get up for an hour," Keene
said. "If your current lifestyle is that you used to be a cyclist, you need to get
out every day."

Once the class returns from the expedition, they will meet twice more to discuss post-production
needs and issues before the final delivery of the documentaries and assignment work
is due on April 22.

Foster watches students work on mountain biking techniques at the Mae Simmons trails
in Lubbock.

The content will not only earn the students a grade but could become valuable examples
of their work that catches the eye of a potential future employer while putting these
students a step ahead of their peers in an ever-competitive and vicious job market.
Foster cited as an example one of his past students who was part of the New Zealand
trip; he was hired by Southwest Airlines to shoot stock photo material of many of
its destinations, getting the job based on his photography portfolio made in New Zealand.

"The ultimate idea of this class as a whole, and this goes for the professional and
personal objectives of every student, is to be as real-world as possible," Foster
said. "We do a really good job in this college, we think, in creating these experiences
for students that are completely immersive. The London class has a very real-world
production component to it and also critical thinking that is performed in professional
areas. The New Zealand study abroad course, the Junction photography course that we
teach, and courses we can highlight in the college, all contain impactful, real-world
experiences. Adventure Media is another one that allows students to take an intense
peek into that world."

New way of learning

Foster said he has been encouraged by Todd Chambers, the associate dean for undergraduate affairs in the College of Media & Communication,
to think outside of the box – or in this case outside the classroom – for educational
opportunities.

Part of the New Zealand study abroad course involves a 13-mile hiking trip through
three volcanic zones that students raved about in course critiques. Foster also taught
a similar course to Adventure Media in 2015 as part of the rotating collection of
special topics courses, and Prescott University in Arizona used bikepacking as part
of a class involving its geology department, so he knows there is a desire for these
types of learning experiences.

Keene helps students prepare to ride 26 miles of the Caprock Canyons State Park Trailway.

Foster and Keene have discussed possibly tweaking the class to give students other
experiences. Possible trips could include documenting the Texas Water Safari, a 300-mile
canoe race from San Marcos to the Texas coast, fly fishing (Keene's specialty) in
the San Juan Mountains of Colorado or bikepacking the White Rim Trail in Utah.

Foster also mentioned the idea of teaming with the public relations department in
the college to do humanitarian media production, possibly working with an orphanage
in Haiti to produce a visual media campaign.

"We've talked about this class formulating itself in some other ways, too," Foster
said. "This class doesn't always have to be set on bikepacking, but it is themed toward
the outdoor and recreational adventure market. This class is not that unique in that
it is immersive but it certainly is in how we've been able to structure it or do it
during the regular school year and not as a summer or intersession class. That makes
doing other classes like this possible."

Foster said the concept doesn't have to be limited to just adventure media. It could
morph into other areas such as environmental or natural history media where students
could produce content that communicates about renewable resources or something similar.

"The educational opportunity is there," Foster said. "We are teaching a different
type of student these days than we were five years ago, and five years ago we were
teaching a different kind of student than we were five years before that. One of the
most effective ways to continue being successful in the classroom is creating immersive
learning experiences that are able to take certain theories that are taught in large
lecture halls in practical ways but do it in a smaller class setting. If it just happens
to be a classroom that is 300,000 acres that has desert and snakes and plants that
want to stick you, so be it."